A lot of folks give President Bush (aka Dubya) grief for mangling the English language. Truth is, Dubya comes by the trait honestly. His father, the first President Bush (aka Poppy), was also a notorious mis-speaker. Below are a series of quotations from Poppy, Dubya, and (just to make things interesting) former Vice President Dan Quayle. Can you guess who said what?
1. “Please don’t ask me to do that which I’ve just said I’m not going to do, because you’re burning up time. The meter is running through the sand on you and I am now filibustering.”
2. “When I’m talking about myself, and when he’s talking about myself, all of us are talking about me.”
3. “I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.”
4. “I hope I stand for antibigotry, anti-Semitism, antiracism. This is what drives me.”
5. “It’s no exaggeration to say the undecideds could go one way or another.”
6. “When I need a little advice about Saddam Hussein, I turn to country music.”
7. “High-tech is potent, precise, and, in the end, unbeatable. The truth is, it reminds a lot of people of the way I pitch horseshoes. Would you believe some of the people? Would you believe our dog? Look, I want to give the high-five symbol to high-tech.”
8. “Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream.”
9. “The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century.”
10. “I’ve got a record, a record that is conservative and a record that is compassionated.”
11. “That gets into quota, go into numerical, set numbers for doctors or for … it could go into all kinds of things.”
12. “Then you wake up at the high school level and find out that the illiteracy level of our children are appalling.”
13. “It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.”
14. “If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier — so long as I’m the dictator.”
15. “They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it’s some kind of federal program.”
16. “God loves you, and I love you. And you can count on both of us as a powerful message that people who wonder about their future can hear.”
17. “Mars is essentially in the same orbit … Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe.”
18. “The future will be better tomorrow.”
19. “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.”
20. “Had we gone into Baghdad — we could have done it, you guys could have done it, you could have been there in 48 hours — and then what? Which sergeant, which private, whose life would be at stake in perhaps a fruitless hunt in an urban guerrilla war to find the most secure dictator in the world? Whose life would be on my hands as the commander in chief because I, unilaterally, went beyond the international law, went beyond the stated mission, and said we’re going to show our macho? We’re going into Baghdad. We’re going to be an occupying power — America in an Arab land — with no allies at our side. It would have been disastrous.”
BONUS ROUND: Who said, “Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things”?
1. Poppy, 2. Dubya, 3. Dubya,
4. Poppy, 5. Poppy, 6. Poppy,
7. Poppy, 8. Dubya, 9. Quayle,
10. Dubya, 11. Poppy, 12. Dubya,
13. Quayle, 14. Dubya, 15. Dubya,
16. Dubya, 17. Quayle, 18. Quayle,
19. Dubya, 20. Poppy BONUS: Quayle
Scoring 15-21: You’re a Bush Hog!
10-14: You won’t be misunderestimated!
5-9: You can’t be fooled again.
0-4: So you’re not smart. you can always run for President.
